Trump raised the basic tariff rate from 5% to 15%.
According to Bloomberg, US President Donald Trump said that the so-called reciprocal tariffs on other countries will not be lower than 15%, indicating that he has also increased the base tariff from 10% to 15%.
“We will have a straightforward, simple tariff between 15% and 50%,” Trump said during a summit on artificial intelligence in Washington. “It will be 50% for a number of countries because we have not dealt with them as well as we should have.”
Trump’s statement suggests that the tariffs will start at a low of 15% and also indicates that the US president is looking to impose more stringent tariffs on exports from countries outside the small group that have so far managed to reach an agreement with Washington.
Trump said earlier this month that more than 150 countries would receive letters stating the tariff rate “probably 10% to 15%,” adding that “we have not decided on the rate yet.”
The US president announced on Tuesday that he had backed down on his threat to reduce tariffs on Japan from 25% to 15% after reaching an agreement.
He said yesterday that he would “put very, very light tariffs on some countries because there are a lot of countries that we can’t reach an agreement with.” He also said that talks with the European Union were “serious,” adding that if they open up the bloc to American businesses, then we will put lower tariffs on them.